MERRY CHRISTMAS (JOYEUX NOËL) 7/1, 6:30-9:00pm. Sponsor: Goethe-Institut Washington, Goethe Forum. Film viewing and discussion of the 2005 film that expands on an actual Christmas Eve during world War I, where the Germans, French, and Scottish fraternize and get to know the men who live on the opposite side of a brutal war, in what became a true lesson of humanity.

On May 31, the UN's 1718 Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) Sanctions Committee met to discuss its latest annual report from the Panel of Experts (PoE) assisting the Committee.* The report was circulated to Council members in mid-May and approved for publication June 11. On June 24th, the report and fact sheet were, without objection from China, released publicly.

The 133-page report concludes that the DPRK continues to develop its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. "In both its export and import of goods under sanctions," the DPRK uses "a variety of techniques to circumvent national controls, indicating that the imposition of sanctions has hampered its arms sales and illicit weapon programs." The majority of sanctions non-compliance incidents brought to the attention of the Panel involve movements of illicit goods by sea. Yet, the PoE believe that the sanctions are having an impact and are causing significant delays to Pyongyang's plans.

Most significant, paragraph 50 states that "Diplomats of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or officials travelling on diplomatic or service passports, have also been involved in numerous violations of the arms embargo." The paragraph 51 urges nations hosting North Korean embassies, missions or trade offices "to exercise enhanced vigilance over DPRK diplomatic personnel so as to prevent such individuals from contributing to the DPRK’s prohibited programmes or activities, or to the evasion of sanctions."

The report mentioned incidents involving Pyongyang's officials acting in countries such as Ukraine, Austria and the Republic of Congo ranging from attempts to obtain classified information, to conducting illicit activities out of a diplomatic office and violating arms embargoes.

The POE recommends designating four entities and 11 people for blacklisting.They include the new North Korea Ministry of Atomic Energy Industry, the Munitions Industry Department of the Central Committee of the Korean Workers' Party, the State Space Development Bureau and the Hesong Trading Corp.The individuals include high ranking officials affiliated with the various entities, as well as two individuals from Ukraine and one from Kazakhstan.

*On March 7th, almost four months in advance of the scheduled expiry of the PoE, the Council adopted resolution 2094 renewing its mandate until 7 April 2014, but deciding that the PoE should still submit a final report in accordance with the original reporting schedule of resolution 2050.)

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

APP member
First appeared in the July/August 2013 edition of Foreign Affairs

Last fall, as the countries escalated their quarrel over an island chain that Japan has controlled for more than a century, many Chinese citizens boycotted Japanese products and took to the streets in anti-Japanese riots. This commotion, at times encouraged by the Chinese government, led the Japanese government to fear that Beijing might exploit Japan’s reliance on China as an export market to squeeze Tokyo into making territorial concessions. Throughout the crisis, Japan has doubted that China would ever try to forcibly seize the islands—barren rocks known in Chinese as the Diaoyu Islands and in Japanese as the Senkaku Islands -- if only because the United States has made it clear that it would come to Japan’s defense. Japanese security experts, however, have suggested that China might try other methods of intimidation, including a prolonged economic boycott.During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union carefully avoided triggering a nuclear war because of the assumption of “mutual assured destruction”: each knew that any such conflict would mean the obliteration of both countries. Today, even though tensions between China and Japan are rising, an economic version of mutual deterrence is preserving the uneasy status quo between the two sides.

But these fears have not materialized, for one simple reason: China needs to buy Japanese products as much as Japan needs to sell them. Many of the high-tech products assembled in and exported from China, often on behalf of American and European firms, use advanced Japanese-made parts. China could not boycott Japan, let alone precipitate an actual conflict, without stymieing the export-fueled economic miracle that underpins Communist Party rule.

For the moment, the combination of economic interdependence and Washington’s commitment to Japan’s defense will likely keep the peace. Still, an accidental clash of armed ships around the islands could lead to an unintended conflict. That is why defense officials from both countries have met with an eye to reducing that particular risk. With no resolution in sight, those who fear an escalation can nonetheless take solace in the fact that China and Japan stand to gain far more from trading than from fighting.

THE TIES THAT BIND
Although China first claimed the Diaoyu/ Senkaku Islands in 1971, it never did much to pursue its claim until recently. On the contrary, in the interests of improving economic and political ties, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka agreed in 1972 to shelve the issue indefinitely. Beijing even stopped Chinese nationalist activists from trying to land on the islands and prevented articles that asserted China’s claim to them from appearing in the Chinese press. In the last few years, however, China has reversed course and started to back up its claims with actions. In 2010, for example, a Chinese fishing boat rammed a Japanese coast guard ship in the waters around the islands. When the coast guard personnel arrested the fishing boat’s captain, Beijing declared that Japan had no jurisdiction in “Chinese territory” and cut off supplies to Japan of vital rare-earth minerals until he was released.

It took until July 2012 for the issue to explode. That month, then Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced that his government intended to buy some of the islets from their private Japanese owner. Noda’s aim was to prevent them from being sold to the right-wing governor of Tokyo, who had revealed plans for the islands that would certainly have provoked China. But Beijing told Noda that it would see even the government’s purchase as an unacceptable change in the status quo. The Noda administration ignored warnings from both Beijing and the U.S. State Department and deluded itself that China would acquiesce to the purchase.

Then came the riots and the boycotts. For several weeks in August and September, Chinese protesters caused a ruckus, damaging Japanese-made cars, vandalizing stores selling Japanese products, and setting a Panasonic factory on fire. The police vacillated between encouraging and suppressing the riots, and some Chinese state media outlets listed Japanese brands to boycott. By the time the dust settled, Japanese firms operating in China had suffered about $120 million in property damage, and for a few months thereafter, sales of Japanese cars fell by approximately 40–50 percent.

The riots have stopped, but the larger conflict shows no signs of fading. China regularly sends armed surveillance boats into the islands’ territorial waters, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry now calls the islands a “core interest,” a term limited to the most sensitive areas regarding China’s sovereignty, such as Taiwan and Tibet. China’s Commerce Ministry has hinted at the possibility of a prolonged boycott to get Tokyo to concede that China has legitimate claims to the islands. It warned last September that Noda’s purchase of the islands would “inevitably affect and damage . . . Sino-Japanese economic and trade relations.”

A boycott would indeed prove disastrous for Japan’s export-dependent economy. From 2002 to 2007, a third of Japan’s GDP growth came from an increase in its trade surplus, and another third came from capital investment, much of which was tied to exports. And China stands at the center of this picture. From 1995 to 2011, increased shipments to China accounted for 45 percent of the overall growth in Japanese exports. Since the crisis erupted last July, however, Japan’s price-adjusted exports to China have fallen by 20 percent, compared with an 11 percent drop in its global exports (as of March).

Japan’s dependence on China helps explain why the new Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has not followed through on the hawkish positions he touted during last December’s election campaign, such as his plan to place personnel and facilities on the Senkakus. Abe knows that his popularity hinges on Japan’s economic recovery, and lest he forget it, Japanese businesses have been urging him to refrain from any provocations while still seeking a resolution that maintains the country’s sovereignty over the islands.

But it is not only Tokyo’s behavior that has been tempered by economic interdependence. This year, Chinese censors have blocked the phrase “Boycott Japan” from Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter. During February’s New Year’s celebrations, Beijing banned sales of the popular “Tokyo Big Bang” fireworks, which simulate the burning of the Japanese capital. In late March, China even joined Japan and South Korea in long-anticipated talks aimed at forming a trilateral free-trade agreement.

Meanwhile, Chinese provincial governments, hungry for jobs and tax revenue, keep imploring Japanese companies to expand their operations in China. In February, the city of Chongqing hired the Mitsui Group, a Japanese conglomerate, to develop an industrial park aimed at attracting foreign investment. At a March conference of the Japan-China Economic Association in Beijing, China’s new vice president, Li Yuanchao, may have insisted that the media not photograph him shaking hands with Japan’s top business leaders, but he nevertheless asked those leaders to step up their investments. Even on the national level, China is far more pluralistic than it used to be. The Communist Party–owned Global Times published both pro- and anti-boycott op-eds last fall.

Nor do most Chinese consumers seem interested in a boycott. The Japanese products that have lost the most sales during these latest tensions have been the highly visible ones, which are vulnerable to social pressure. Last fall and winter, sales of the popular cosmetics and skin-care products made by the Japanese company Shiseido tumbled, partly because many customers refrained from sending them as holiday gifts. Some stores temporarily displayed Shiseido products less prominently, but very few stopped carrying them altogether.

The worst-hit Japanese products have been cars, since many were vandalized by hooligans during the riots. But sales are recovering. Last fall, Nissan, the Japanese automaker, offered its Chinese customers its new “Promise for Car Security” program, a guarantee of free repairs for vehicles damaged in anti-Japanese riots. That’s one reason why in March, sales at Nissan dealerships finally rose above the previous year’s levels. And as China’s infamous air pollution has worsened, February sales of air purifiers by Panasonic doubled from the year before, and sales of those made by Daikin quadrupled. Both are Japanese companies.

MADE IN CHINA, WITH HELP FROM JAPAN
Why does China, the world’s largest exporter, so badly need what Japan is selling? Put simply, China’s export-driven economic miracle depends on imports. Around 60-70 percent of the goods China imports from Japan are the machinery and parts needed to make China’s own products. China cannot cut off this flow, or risk disrupting it through conflict, without crippling its economy. That is why, during the height of the island crisis last fall, the same Chinese customs officials who sometimes delayed shipments of Japanese consumer goods let industrial parts pass through.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Today, June 24, is the 113th birthday Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959). A linguist, a lawyer, a scholar, he devoted most of his life to making the world understand and recognize a crime so horrific that there had not even been a word for it. In 1944, he gave the world the word, "genocide."

Coming of age in post-World War I Poland, Lemkin was keenly aware of virilent campaigns to wipe out the "other." As a Jewish intellectual he straddled western and eastern traditions, modern and ancient sensibilities. Most important, he experienced long-nurtured prejudices and knew that what Hitler proposed was something quite different than any pogrom the Jews had ever seen.

Lemkin recognized that modern civilized society needed to address not only the crimes committed in war, of one country against another, but also those of mass violence within the sovereign state. He identified two "new crimes"—barbarism (killing civilians of a particular ethnic group because of their membership in that group)—and vandalism (the destruction of the cultural heritage of such groups).

In exile in the United States after 1941,Lemkin carefully collected documents and reports on Nazi rule throughout the growing Third Reich. In 1944, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published Lemkin's Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. His book included an extensive legal analysis of Nazi Germany along with the definition of the term genocide. He said he had created the word by combining the ancient Greek word genos (race, tribe) and the Latin cide (killing). [see video above]

Lemkin worked hard, and alone, to have have his view of genocide as an offense against international law--against humanity--accepted by the international community. His success was that it was one of the legal bases of the Nuremberg Trials. In 1948, the newly formed United Nations used his new word in its Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, a treaty intended to prevent future genocides.

Reading Lemkin's autobiography helps us acknowledge both the significance and the limits of his work. Naming a crime is not the same as eliminating it. That he did not launch a new era immediately, one in which human dignity comes before state sovereignty, is hardly a criticism. The times and the odds were against him. What he offered was apossibility, one to be taken up today or tomorrow, and who can do more than that?

BLACK CODE: INSIDE THE BATTLE FOR CYBERSPACE. 6/24, 10:00am-Noon. Sponsor: National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Speakers: Ronald J. Deibert, Author, Director, Canada Centre for Global Security Studies and the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto; Leslie Harris, President and CEO, Center for Democracy and Technology; Harvey Rishikof, Chair of the Advisory Committee, American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and National Security.

PACIFIC DAY. 6/17, 4:00-9:00pm. Sponsor: CSIS Pacific Partners Initiative and the Ambassadors and Representatives of Pacific Island Countries and Territories in Washington, D.C. Features a seminar from 4:00 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. and a reception from 6:15 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. 'Pacific Day' will be held at the Embassy of New Zealand. Admission to the event is by invitation only, but the seminar will be webcast live.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

On June 11, San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim introduced a resolution asking Mayor Ed Lee to urge his Osaka counterpart, Toru Hashimoto to apologize to the Comfort Women victims, retract his demeaning statements regarding the sex slaves of Imperial Japan, and

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors calls on President Barack 17 Obama and the U.S. Congress to formally ask the Japanese government to initiate legislation, 18 to be adopted by the Japanese Diet, formally acknowledging the wartime atrocities committed 19 by the Japanese government in countries that it invaded and occupied, apologize for the 20 atrocities committed by its soldiers, and compensate the victims of Japanese aggression, 21 including the survivors of the forced sexual enslavement during World War II, akin to the 22 actions taken by the U.S. Congress in 1988 when it passed legislation acknowledging and 23 apologizing for its unlawful detention of Japanese Americans during World War II and the 24 actions taken by the German government formally acknowledging the atrocities committed by 25 its wartime government and military forces during World War II;

This resolution follows a statement issued by Emily Moto Murase, the Mayor's head of the City's Department on the Status of Women condemning Mayor Hashimoto's view that the Comfort Women were “necessary” to provide relief to soldiers as a "flagrant denial of basic human rights."

She writes that she is joined by other leading organizations in the Japanese American community such as the U.S.-Japan Council, which asserted, “Statements that are demeaning to women or that are historically inaccurate are inappropriate and harm the relationship between Japan and its allies.”

In addition, the San Francisco-Osaka Sister City Association released the following: “Statements that justify controversial wartime abuses and devastating violence against women are damaging to international relations, and contrary to the mission of the association.”

Dr. Murase is also on the board of the Osaka-San Francisco sister-city committee. She noted to a reporter that a visit by Osaka Mayor Hashimoto "would have been very difficult because of what we know as San Francisco values."

With these statements, it is clear that the Japanese American community is not to be separated out from other Asian Americans or any Americans in their rejection of denier history.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Richard Katz, editor of the Oriental Economist and APP member, published the article below in OE's June 2013 issue (June 7, 2013)

The Japanese media is famous for finding fault with Prime Ministers within a couple months of their taking office. But Shinzo Abe “has been getting an incredible free pass for six months,” said one stunned American political scientist. The media had similarly acted as a cheering squad for Yukio Hatoyama in his first couple months—until his own fecklessness doomed him. In the initial honeymoon, the editor of one journal called the editor of another to complain about an article that, while accurate, made Hatoyama look bad. “Japan needs Hatoyama to succeed to reinforce ‘regime change,’ so we should support him.”

Today, editors and reporters are acting as if Abe’s success is somehow Japan’s last chance to revive. Meanwhile, Abe has carefully cultivated the media, reportedly having dinner with the President of almost every major media organization. Abe and Yomiuri publisher Tsuneo Watanabe reportedly meet frequently. (Click HERE and search for “Prime Minister of Japan’s Schedule” “PMJS” in tags)

The dog that didn’t bark
The media stance is sometimes seen in the news that they fail to report. The most egregious case has occurred around Abe’s comments on whether Japan’s actions during World War II and earlier deserve the label “aggression” used in the 1995 apology by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama. Proclaiming in the Diet that this was an issue for academic historians, it was, in fact, a refusal to reaffirm the Murayama statement.

Abe had promised himself not to let such issues arise before the July Upper House elections, but sometimes he just can’t help himself. The problem is that his beloved grandfather, Noboru Kishi, was directly involved as economic overlord of Manchukuo and a Minister in Hideki Tojo’s cabinet. Abe cannot admit to himself that his hero committed aggression. This is a problem that Abe shares with many other LDP leaders who are descendants of World War II-era leaders.

LDP Policy Affairs Council chair Sanae Takaichi went beyond Abe’s evasions, forthrightly claiming that, “It was understood at that time [before and during the war] that our nation had to fight resolutely in self-defense for its own survival.” Other ministers and party leaders have been forced to resign for far less damaging comments.

With the exception of a few outlets like Asahi, most of the media simply offered brief reports on Abe’s and Takaichi’s words. They provided little analysis and failed to explain the damage these comments did to Japan’s interests overseas, including cooperation with Seoul regarding North Korea. Abe’s views focus Asian attention on Japan’s past acts rather than China’s present ones. The US State Department summoned a senior official from the Japanese Embassy to express its distress.

Kyodo did a very good analysis, but few newspapers printed it. Jiji Press reported as if it were fact a statement from Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga that the Koreans had "misunderstood" Abe’s words. Think tanks whose leaders tend to be supportive of Abe, such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, have tried to convey to Abe in private the impact he has had.

How many ordinary Japanese know that the man who campaigned on restoring US-Japan ties has been losing Washington’s confidence?

Suga tried to put an end to the whole issue by having Abe say that, “I never denied that Japan committed aggression.” Yet, Abe refuses to affirm it either. Nonetheless, the Yomiuri, which one journalist said is “acting like a government newspaper,” reported that Suga had successfully laid the issue to rest. Within Japan perhaps—especially since Toru Hashimoto has diverted attention via his notorious comments on “comfort women.” But not in the nations whose cooperation Japan needs.

Abe, Tamogami, and the “comfort women” ad
Nor has the daily press and TV investigated why so many of Abe’s aides and associates hold revisionist views. Consider Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura, the man in charge of Abe’s desire to make the education curriculum “more patriotic.”

In 2012, Shimomura said that Abe “should declare that the Nanking Massacre did not take place and the issue of comfort women does not exist. He should fully negate the Tokyo Trials historical viewpoint, and should also visit Yasukuni Shrine.” The interview was with Toshio Motoya, a real estate magnate and Abe associate whose magazine in 2008 awarded first prize to a notorious essay by Toshio Tamogami [Was Japan an Aggressor Nation? 2008], who was appointed [Japan] Air [Self Defense] Force Chief of Staff during Abe’s first term.

Tamogami claimed that, “Japan was ensnared in a trap that was very carefully laid by the United States in order to draw Japan into a war.” Though Tamogami was forced to resign, Mindy Kotler of the Washington-based Asia Policy Point, has discovered on Tamogami’s website that Abe appeared publicly at least six times at events sponsored by Tamogami’s Nippon Ganbare organization.*

Abe himself signed a November 4, 2012 advertisement in the New Jersey Star-Ledger denying the Japanese government and military’s role in forcing women into prostitution during World War II. So, did LDP Policy Chief Takaichi. Rather than justify the sex slavery, as Hashimoto did, Abe simply denies it. Abe heads the list of signers from the Liberal Democratic Party. According to Kotler, the signers include ten members of Abe’s current cabinet.** The ad was sponsored by the rightwing “Committee For Historical Facts” [Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact].

Why the media protects Abe
Why does so much of the media protect Abe? The reason seems to be that Abe gives the impression of being the strong leader that many Japanese feel is needed to get Japan out of its economic morass and to stand up to China and South Korea.

People admire Abe’s leadership capacity and personality far more than his individual policies. For example, in a May 28 poll in Sankei, 72% approved of Abe’s personal character and 67% approved of his leadership qualities. Both are significantly above the 54% who approved of Abe’s stimulus measures, the 47% who approved of his security policies, and the 32% who approved of amending Article 96 of the Constitution. Considering that 75% disapproved of Hashimoto’s comments on comfort women, what would happen to Abe’s approval rate if the press delved deeply into Abe’s views?

People yearn for a reason to hope and don’t want any news about Abe that could dampen their hopes. According to an important leader in Japanese journalism, editors and reporters are not merely unwilling to defy the feelings of their viewers and readers. Many of them share those feelings.

Asia Policy Point adds:*7 (possibly 8 as one has disappeared from the website since )

**See photo heading this article of "assentors/signatories". Separated out below is the list of Abe Cabinet members who signed "The Facts" ad in the November 4, 2012 New Jersey Start Ledger, which was two days before the US national elections and less than a week after Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New Jersey.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

ONE MILLION BONES. 6/8-10. National Mall. Large-scale social arts practice, combining education, hands-on art making, and public installation to raise awareness of ongoing genocides and mass atrocities in places like Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia and Burma. 1,000,000 handcrafted bones placed on the Mall to serve as a collaborative site of conscience to honor victims and survivors and as a visual petition against ongoing conflicts and a call for action.

American legislatures are fast becoming aware of the Comfort Women issue. Two factors appear to be at play. One is a greater awareness and prosecution of human trafficking. The other is the growing political influence of the Asian-American community. Together they push the Comfort Women tragedy beyond its specific historic period and merge it with contemporary campaigns to combat sexual slavery and other grave violations of human rights.

Resolutions and proclamations honoring the Comfort Women now all urge education on their history as an example of contemporary human trafficking. The original 2007 US House of Representatives resolution, H. Res. 121 (100th Congress, 1st Session) focused on the need for an unequivocal state apology. New legislative activity starts with a discussion of trafficking drawing clear connections between the Comfort Women and modern forms of sexual violence and slavery.

For example, on April 23, Maryland's Montgomery County Council presented a proclamation that emphasizes the problems of human trafficking in the county while honoring the Comfort Women. Presented by Councilmember Valerie Ervin (D), the Proclamation resolved that “the County Council of Montgomery County, Md. hereby extends our profound hope that the crimes against the comfort women of World War II will serve as a lasting reminder to the world that crimes against humanity will not be condoned or tolerated.” The proclamation also recognized the work of Del. Susan C. Lee (D-Dist. 16) of Bethesda to pass state legislation against human trafficking.

As you can see from the video above, the Proclamation was presented to prominent members of the local Asian-American community: State Delegate Susan Lee; Judge Chung Pak; Linda Han, President, Korean American Association of the Washington Metropolitan Area; Christine Choi, President, Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues; Christina Shin, President, Korean American Women’s Chamber of Commerce; Young Ha Kim, Montgomery County Korean American Association; and Stan Tsai, Chairman, Chinese Culture and Community Service Center.

On May 23rd, the House of Representatives of the Illinois General Assembly passed its own resolution on Comfort Women. The Resolution, HR0365, "urges Illinois educators to share with students the story of 'comfort women' when discussing World War II history and expresses a commitment to explore ways to develop an Asian American social science and history curriculum for public schools concerning the subject of 'comfort women' and other Asian American experiences."

Introduced by Representative Elaine Nekritz (D), the Resolution also focuses on the contemporary problems of human trafficking. Among the several clauses highlighting the issue, the first notes "The State of Illinois stands against human trafficking in all its forms, as evidenced by the 2005 formation of the Illinois Rescue and Restore Coalition, a partnership between the Illinois Department of Human Services and the federal government to combat labor and sex trafficking in Illinois."

On June 20th, the New Jersey State Senate will likely approve Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 124. This vote will make the resolution one of the entire state legislature. Unlike the two above, it is narrowly focused and does not generalize the Comfort Women experience. It says: "The General Assembly commemorates and supports comfort women in their fight for proper acknowledgement by the Japanese government of the suffering they endured during their forced internment in military comfort stations and calls upon the Japanese government to accept historical responsibility for the sexual enslavement of comfort women by the Imperial Japanese military and educate future generations about these crimes."

Legislators in all the states mentioned above have been spammed by a coordinated campaign to discredit the Comfort Women and to intimidate lawmakers. The rightwing Nadeshiko Action Japanese Women for Justice and Peace tracks pro-Comfort Women activities in the U.S. and organizes detailed English-language email spam attacks on anyone associated with an identified American Comfort Women bill or program. Their uniform "emails" claim that the Comfort Women were mere prostitutes and that the issue was created by Koreans to humiliate Japan.

The group also assists Japanese diplomats and businessmen approach American government officials in an effort to dissuade any Comfort Women initiatives. Recently, according to Nadeshiko and Yonhap News, they have had success. A library in suburban Detroit has been "persuaded" to halt plans to erect a Comfort Women memorial.

In the end, this is all about hate speech and a political agenda that find national pride in another's humiliation. The Internet has given new life to the Right. In the new book, Viral Hate: Containing Its Spread on the Internet, the authors who are leaders in the Anti-Defamation League, find that "haters have embraced the new technologies to spread their lies, to recruit and to mislead. Today, while it is a marvelous medium for education, communication, entertainment and commerce, the ways in which the Internet is being used to disseminate and promote hateful and violent beliefs and attitudes are astounding, varied and continually multiplying."

Friday, June 7, 2013

Last year, Richard Armitage, Joseph Nye, Michael Green and others published a paper about Japan in which they asked if Japan would end up becoming a Tier-two nation. Secretary Armitage, here is my answer to you. Japan is not, and will never be, a Tier two country. That is the core message I am here to make.

However, Japan already is a "Tier 2 country."

Since 2001, Japan has ranked as a Tier 2 country in the U.S. State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. This means that Japan does not yet fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking but is making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.

During the year, the Japanese government did not develop or enact anti-trafficking legislation that would fill key gaps in facilitating anti-trafficking prosecutions, and the government did not arrest, prosecute, or convict a single forced labor perpetrator in 2011.

...

Draft and enact a comprehensive anti-trafficking law prohibiting all forms of trafficking and prescribing sufficiently stringent penalties that are commensurate with other serious crimes; significantly increase efforts to investigate and prosecute forced labor cases, and punish offenders with jail time; increase the enforcement of bans on deposits, punishment agreements, withholding of passports, and other practices that contribute to forced labor in the foreign trainee program; continue to proactively investigate and, where warranted, punish government complicity in trafficking or trafficking-related offenses; further expand and implement formal victim identification procedures to guide officials in the identification of forced labor; continue to ensure victims are not punished for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being in a human trafficking situation; establish protection policies for all victims of trafficking, including male victims and victims of forced labor; ensure that protection services, including medical and legal services, are fully accessible to victims of trafficking regardless of income; and aggressively investigate, prosecute, and punish Japanese nationals who engage in child sex tourism.

Maybe the speechwriter should have written the softer sounding "second tier" country. "Tier 2" is legalese, especially the kind that suggests international accountability and comparison. And for those in the human rights community the designation hones in on Japan's long and unfettered history of human trafficking, especially of women and girls for sexual slavery.

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APP is a Washington research center studying the U.S. policy relationship with Northeast Asia. We provide factual context and informed insight on Asian science, finance, politics, security, history, and public policy.